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Just to second something Anon39 mentioned in his/her post above, time management is essential (the ACCA should offer a qualification in Time Management, seriously.).
This is true of any P level exam but write quickly, keep track of the time, and whether in terms of a part of a question, or a whole question, or a section, *know when to move on*.
You should know by now whether you are a Section A first type of person or a Section B first type of person. My advice to anyone who asks me is always not to tackle Section A last, do it first when you’re the most switched on and focused. Also means you should be able to spend all of the allotted time on it instead of potentially running out of time if you’re attempting it last and your time management is bad.
Another thing is that people sometimes assume is that P4 is all numbers and as long as they master the calculations they’ll be fine. I have no idea what the split between calcs/theory is, but there is a lot of theory to learn. You need to be able to explain the principles of why we do the calcs (succintly), as well as being able to actually do them. Do not spend 90% of your time on practicing calculations.
There are no ‘complementary’ topics in P4. We just had a ton of marks on bonds, which are a relatively small, less meaty part of the syllabus. I don’t expect so many marks on bonds to come up again but the point is that everything is examinable, you don’t want to tank the exam because you paid less attention to something than was due. Have at least a passing knowledge of all areas.
Practice report writing also because besides BSOP the presentation marks are the next easiest 4 marks in this paper…
Good luck
Passed at the second attempt with 57.
Bizarrely, P4 was the hardest module for me out of the 5 P papers I did and it gave me my second highest mark.
It’s a real shock. Although section B was very fair in my opinion, when I saw so many marks on bonds in section A, I thought for sure my chances of passing had gone tits up. I’m not surprised the pass rate was the lowest of all 4 sittings in 2017.
I’ve been running on fumes for the past year, so very happy to finally be done.
For those who failed, it’s natural to be depressed but do pick yourselves up again. They are going to have to go back to a more orthodox Q1 at some point, you’ll get your chance eventually.
Monday is fine for me. The day of the week is not something that makes any difference to me at all, I just wish we didn’t have to wait so long for results, i.e. over a month. The amount of money all of us pay, both students and members, must be more than enough to simply hire more markers/improve efficiency through better use of IT etc. so we can get our results back within 4 weeks rather than the current 5 weeks.
Another thing I don’t like (though admittedly it’s not, strictly speaking, what is under consideration here) is that the results are released at midnight. For those of us who are working (which I’m guessing is around 99% of us), it’s very hard not to stay up and wait for results, so pass or fail we end up with a bad night of sleep. Why not release them at a much more civil time, like 9 am? or maybe 6 pm?
@ranafakharhayat said:
Ebusiness and link theory both works 100%Aldo note it work before 3days of exam result day mean it work on 14th january 2018
This whole ‘link theory’ has not been confirmed or substantiated in any way either by the ACCA themselves or by a credible third party. I wish persons such as yourself would simply stop repeating these theories, but even if you do need to refer to them then at least refrain from claiming/implying that these are “100%” confirmed to work or in any way verified.
Firstly, this is simply dishonest as there is no way you could possibly know whether the theories are true or not, and secondly, you are potentially causing misery for the gullible and desperate students among us who frankly don’t deserve this.
If I was a moderator on this forum I would delete your post and suspend your account.
@christa316 said:
How did you guys arrive at this figure?What did you do for the year 1 and year 2 tax losses? Did you add back the tax credit on the cash flows?
Did you add it back as a tax credit so that there was a nil effect since it really wasnt a cash flow?
Based on the answers I believe that is what is causing my NPV to be 3,013 million versus this 1170 that everyone is doing. since I belive it was 2,230 in year 1 and a smaller amount in year 2. That times the Cost of Capital of 12% would have made the difference
I got 3000m odd too for the same reason. The question definitely said the taxable losses were refunded in the same year so I added the taxable loss back to essentially cancel out the cash flow. I thought it was weird that the government would essentially be paying the company for making a loss but I couldn’t find any other way to interpret the question.
I too would be interested to hear from the people who got 1000m odd on what they did with the tax losses.
I thought this was a fair exam,
Q1, the topics were a little unexpected to say the least. Bonds are hardly a massive part of the syllabus, I never would have guessed that there would be so many marks in Q1 on bonds. I didn’t worry too much about what I actually got for the computations, hoping for some follow through marks and those presentation marks.
Q2, I thought was a fairly straightforward investment appraisal question. The only thing which threw me was the bit about taxable losses being refunded, just because I hadn’t seen it before and wasn’t sure how to treat it. I just guessed at it, but my answers felt a little off (what did everyone else do here?). And I didn’t attempt the 5 marks on Monte Carlo simulation, I just didn’t have the knowledge (who does?!).
Q3 looked like a pretty generous question on ratios (think it said 10 marks were available for calculations alone!), it must have been pretty simple to get more than 50% here. In retrospect, maybe I should have picked this question instead of Q2.
I surprised myself by choosing Q4. Besides Fx hedging being less common in questions than interest rate hedging, it was a pretty standard, “compare the results from a forward hedge, futures hedge, options hedge, and recommend a strategy” question. There wasn’t much in it that was tricky.
Q1 was an oddball, but I think the Section B questions were good questions. Better questions than the last time I sat this paper anyway.
This is a strange question. Nothing is impossible; the pass mark is 50, if you get lucky with the questions you could always pass. But without anyone saying anything you must already understand that this is not an ideal scenario and you are going to need to devote an awful lot of time to this over the next three weeks.
Having not passed P4 yet, I don’t feel qualified to give you advice on precisely what you need to do in order to achieve this but in general, as with all P level exams, there are no silver bullets; you will need to know the syllabus thoroughly and have done a fair few practice questions.
I wouldn’t focus too much on age, Paul, though I admit, I wish I had started this when I was younger.
I have been paying for my own exams/membership fees too, and I got no exemptions and started from F1 too.
I’ve failed an exam, I’ve contemplated quitting, my life has essentially been on hold for the past four years, I use all of my annual leave at work to do day release courses. I haven’t been on holiday in years. But I keep going and I will keep going until my P papers start to expire. If it takes me another 6 years then that’s fine. I’ve spent too much blood, sweat, tears, time, and actual money on this to give up so easily. When I think of what I’ve sacrificed in order to do this, relationships, friends, family relationships, general happiness; I don’t want that all to be for nothing.
I have only 2 exams left to go (1 if I passed my September exam). I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying them, or that I’m motivated anymore, I’m just putting one foot in front of the other inching slowly towards my goal.
I’m too far in to quit, but you’ve only done 5 exams. I feel like there is still time for you to decide you don’t want to do this. Because it will get harder the further you go. Have a think about why you are studying in the first place. If you still have that reason to study, and you are willing to put in another 2 years at least of hard graft then I’d suggest you plough on. If you aren’t sure why you’re doing this and you don’t feel you can do it for much longer then there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable. I know many accountants that have quit professional exams at various stages. There’s no shame in it, knowing when to quit is a virtue. But ultimately that isn’t something any of us can tell you, you need to have a long, honest think about it and decide if this is really for you.
But know that people of all ages, backgrounds, situations etc have passed these exams. People have failed multiple exams multiple times and have still made it through. It might seem like it’s impossible and you can’t do it, but it isn’t impossible and you can do it, if you want to.